Sorry (again!) for the lengthy absence, but it was my birthday on July 2nd, so I've been treating myself to a week off!! On Monday night, as I was watching Brazil beat Chile in the World Cup and preparing to fly over to London, a neigbour knocked on my door to tell me that he'd spotted a couple of young guys on the top of the roof of my extension, stealing lead!!! The pair of us ran them off (well, he did most of the running -- I offered sterling support from the sidelines!!) and I called down the police. They didn't get away with anything in the end-- nasty little bleeders!!!!

In London I went to lots of art galleries and also checked out the elephants from the Elephant Parade: http://www.elephantparadelondon.org/ Lots of fun, and some of them were very cool as well. I watched most of the matches in the World Cup quarter finals. My favourite game so far was watching Brazil play the Netherlands -- I watched it at the Udderbelly (a massive upside down purple cow with a theatre in its belly!!) and there were lots of passionate Brazilian and Dutch fans. Fans make all the difference really when it comes to football -- a match can be interesting if you watch it alone, but it only really comes alive if you're part of a crowd where people really CARE!!!

On Friday I saw a comedian called Andrew Lawrence at the Udderbelly -- I'd seen him before and liked him, but he didn't raise many laughs this time. After that I saw a freak show which was lots of fun -- no real freaks to speak of, but lots of performers doing nicely freakish acts, e.g. a woman who could hammer a spoon up her nose (DON'T try that at home!!) and a guy called Frank SiNazi who sang Frank Sinatra songs but with a German twist...

On Saturday I went to the Hop Farm with Bas and a couple of her friends, Declan and Ciara. There were some organisational issues (problems getting there from the train station, and nobody telling us that the bands in one of the tents were running 90 minutes late) but lots of very good bands. Enjoyed Peter Doherty even though I don't know any of his songs, and Mumford And Sons were very good, but the real star for me was Ray Davies, the lead singer in The Kinks -- he has a great back catalogue and is also a brilliant performer. I loved his set!! Bob Dylan was on after that, but I was too tired to fight my way up close to the stage. And although there were big screens on either side of the stage, Dylan wouldn't let them do a proper camera show -- the cameraman was only allowed to point his camera at the entire band and not move it, so no close-ups, crowd shots, dissolves or anything else, so it was boring as hell to watch for anyone who couldn't get up close!! I love Dylan's songs, but man, what an ass of a human being!!!!! After a few songs we left him to his petulant whims and made our way home.

Had a quiet day today. Rose late, pottered around for a bit, had some lunch, did some shopping, went to see my grand-aunt Martha who is in hospital at the moment -- we've been visiting her quite a lot while in London. After that we went to another show in the Udderbelly called "Brazil! Brazil!" It features performers from the favelas in Brazil, including a guy who can do amazing things with a football -- lots of fun for 20 minutes, but they dragged it out to 70 minutes, so I was quite bored by the end. Hey-ho!!!